It has become common in merchandising today to package items individually on cards, or otherwise with grommets which are made to be slid onto hooks, so that the merchandise may be displayed and removed from the display easily. The hanger arms on which the merchandise is displayed are often mounted on a horizontal crossbar which, in turn, is mounted on wall supports. It is often necessary to rearrange, or move, the display fixture and the merchandise theron. Since the hanger arms are generally not fixedly attached to the crossbar, the means for such attachment should, therefore, be designed to facilitate mounting of the hanger arm to the crossbar and for easy and quick removal of the hanger arm from the crossbar in order to assist rearrangement of merchandise or movement of the display fixture to another location. The novel clip defined and claimed herein is designed to enable one to quickly and easily attach a hanger arm to a crossbar and, similarly, to remove the hanger arm therefrom.
A number of devices have been patented that have been designed to mount assemblies to a crossbar. Thus, Broga in U.S. Pat. No. 884,361, dated Apr. 14, 1908, discloses a meat hook having a bracket which hangs on a horizontal bar provided with a pivoted member spring biased to engage the underside of the bar. Samuels in U.S. Pat. No. 2,665,869, dated Jan. 12, 1954, discloses a bracket which hooks over the top of a flat horizontal bar and has a wedging lip which snaps onto the bottom of the bar. A hanger arm is fixedly attached to the bracket. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,869,201, dated Jan. 20, 1959, Wolff discloses a metal clip having a hook at the top which engages the top edge of a flat bar, a first integral spring portion which snaps over the bottom of the bar and engages the lower front face of the bar and a tongue which engages the bottom of the bar. Moore in U.S. Pat. No. 3,965,540, dated June 29, 1976, discloses a plastic clip for mounting crossbars, used to support hooks for displaying merchandise, to brackets mounted on a wall. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,686 to Kersey, dated May 22, 1984, there is shown a bracket, fixedly attached to a hanger arm, which hangs on a square tubular bar and is locked in place by a spring-biased pin which engages the underside of the tubular bar.
From what will be shown hereinafter, it will be apparent that none of these references, or any combination thereof, discloses or teaches the novel clip herein which fits onto a bracket of a hanger arm to facilitate attachment, and removal, of said hanger arm to a crossbar.